THE NEW JPA ALLOWANCES

War Hero

As an Infanteer I appear to know more about this than others judging from posts on ARRSE. I have copied this because I assume there is a coms problem ?

Gasp !

..let me enlighten you because you are about to receive a purple book containing info that you think is not on the on the horizon but you appear not to know about it - spooky.

Read the DINs. Hopefully your SPS types are letting you know that there is a brute called JSP 752 arriving and for most things you are concerned about (travel, NRSA etc etc) the world changes on the arrival of JPA in the RAF in late March...the new Regs affect all Services at the same time for about 60 of the most important allowances - why don't you know about this ?

Major changes are here, LSSA is replaced by LSA, read the JSP or speak to your RAO and learn about it.

LE

And as an even better idea AGG nobody has planned any training for your unit clerks in these new rules. So your RAO will have to wait for the real JSP to turn up (it is still in draft); then read learn and inwardly digest it (ie RTFM), then train his clerks, then train the lumpen masses (by April?) and then operate a set of rules designed to work under JPA, manually!

And of course continue the day job, finish off the OTT and prepare for DII/JPA/FORGE. Just a normal day's work then .........

War Hero

And as an even better idea AGG nobody has planned any training for you unit clerks in these new rules. So your RAO will have to wait for the real JSP to turn up (it is still in draft); then read learn and inwardly digest it (ie RTFM), then train his clerks, then train the lumpen masses and then operate a set of rules designed to work under JPA manually!

And of course continue the day job, finish off the OTT and prepare for DII/JPA/FORGE. Just a normal day's work then .........

And it's likely to be worse for the TA, as apparently Worthy Down are binning all TA courses in preparation of JPA, which will do wonders for the people being persuaded to be clerks rather than infanteers etc.

War Hero

Ah, but that's similar to the problems TA units experience with FORGE, it's predecessor TAMIS, as well as UNICOM. (Won't even mention UNICOM Out Of Barracks.)

No one at a TA unit outside of the RAO or the Civil Service Systems Administrator (both at RHQ) know who to talk to, and couldn't do anything at the weekend anyway, so if you have a problem, you're stuffed. On more than one weekend, I've been tapping away quite merrily, the system crashed on me and that's that.

When you consider that FORGE won't talk directly to Glasgow, and that you have to download the FORGE information into UNICOM, make sure nothing got lost in the download (and it does), and then transmit to Glasgow, it makes you wonder what joined up thinking is going on, and that's for something as relatively simple as FORGE, which at the end of the day, is simply a mechanism for recording Attendance Registers. I reminded my PSAO a little while ago about how much simpler the system was when it was manual PAM50s printed out of PAMPAS, where you manually wrote in the pay allowance, and put it in the post to the relevant APC. Don't think the guys were paid any later than they currently are.

Sometimes, computers are held up to be more efficient, simply because they're computers. I suspect someone grownup said "Manning crisis with the AGC? Tell you what, we're all PC literate these days, get the guys to do their own admin". Hmm, interesting. Haven't noticed my civilian employer taking that route.

This is my concern with JPA - we're potentially trying to be too clever. If the rules were simpler for making claims, the administration of them would be less complex as well. JPA implies the SPS staff can be fewer - but what happens on Ops? Does the Brigade/Division get a larger SPS team because the blokes on the ground won't have access to JPA? What happens to skill fade because the SPS team in your Battalion using JPA, get posted to a Battalion on Ops with no JPA and have to go back to a paper and pen system?

Or will there now be a Royal Signals tech attached to sort out the JPA specific issues?

LE

AGG, Yes but you will see that the copy on the web is, still missing Chapters and many paragraphs come in blue for some reason.

Leaflets starting to arrive, we look after 60+ UINs in 40+ locations, so it wasn't done by Paying UIN for some reason.

Yes one can read it and discuss it with the staff, but somehow the lumpen masses must also understand the new rules and what is expected from them, I can't just parade the 800 of them in a gym somewhere, they are all over the shop.

There are issues too about how to work the interim system ?1Apr-27 Nov, does a 1771 have to be authorised (probably no) should the claimant have to sign it twice, do they really mean to drop the receipt needed level to Â£5+, what evidence of a 3 min phone call home does one need (the individuals Mobile Bill?). The guidance on the expected levels of NS & DS are yet to be published (Civil Servants can reasonabley claim a 1/2 btl of wine with dinner can squaddies have a couple of pints with theirs?) Plus lots of other questions. I had hoped that the SPS CoC would have Div pow-wows to sort it all out but apparently it is just RTFM.

So I think the bottom line is there is still a lot of detail to sort out but very little time to cascade it down to all who need to know.

Old-Salt

War Hero

I am no sure anyone can blame the SPS CoC ...there will have been lots of tri-Service probs for SP Pol to resolve and I am certain this will have delayed things.

Also, not sure that anyone can to get TOO agitated about it yet as EVERYONE is somewhat uncertain of what to do - you can hardly get criticised for not doing something properly if your CoC themselves haven't worked it out & told you what to do. I feel sure that leeway will be given in the initial stages - it must be.

From what I have seen, unless you have full DII there will be very few labourious tasks lost to produce the manpower savings expected with JPA. The 2ICs clerk and QMs clerks were always expendable - why do I need 2 Coy clerks (one of whom is always playing Corps sport ?). Our ROA tells me his Pay Sgt post goes in addition to his Docs Sgt..this seems crazy - she is one person we MUST retain as she appears t be one of the few people my soldiers trust knows about the thing most important to them - money.

LE

I don't blame anybody, but the big hand small map style doesn't suit our business. We need the nity grity detail in order that we are all singing from the same song sheet. There are now only two months before we have to operate a completely new set of rules and someone has to educate c100,000 army personnel on what they are.

War Hero

Sorry mate but I am confused by you AGC types. Why wait for your CoC to tell you ? The info has been issued through DINs and if I have it in my unit, at OC level, then it MUST be in your HQ. It is probably sat in some girly SO2 SPSs email inbox while she is skiing (she is probably then going sailing so do not hold your breath!).

Log onto the Defence Intranet, pull up JSP 752 (which IS complete), read it and tell your team what they need to change and do. Even I can read this document on line.

You do not need to attend a course to do this, waiting for your CoC to tell you will be too late I fear.

LE

....Also, not sure that anyone can to get TOO agitated about it yet as EVERYONE is somewhat uncertain of what to do - you can hardly get criticised for not doing something properly if your CoC themselves haven't worked it out & told you what to do.....

About a year ago, my unit was roundly criticised in public by HQ for not knowing about a policy document that had been published on the Intranet. My boss, who is a bit of a whizz with the barbed comment, fired back. Silence from HQ and a little better relationship between them and us. Until the next change of staff!

But, sadly, it is not unusual to find that Staff Officers and Civil Servants in their lofty eyries have forgotten that the vast majority of the Army is not connected to DII and does not have time to wade through reams of badly laid out documents on the Intranet! I am in the middle of JSP336 at the moment - not a pleasant experience!

And I won't mention the search mechanism on the Defence Intranet or I will have to go and lie down in a dark room!

"I firmly believe that we should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war." George Bush Snr, A World Transformed, 1998

LE

AGG I'm afraid you don't understand the situation clearly enough. The rules in the JSP are designed for a JPA user but we have to use them in a non JPA period therefore there are many clarifications needed. An example would be the simple 1771, making a claim with JPA you wouldn't need it or a Responsible officer, before that time you will need it in order for your Pmr to pay you the claim BUT who should sign it and how many times (at present Cols and above who can self certify have to sign it twice).

My point is that there is lots of boring technical detail for the period 27 Mar-27 Nov that we need [quickly so that we can tell the punters].

PS well done I know that (girly?)SO2 as well .... and she needs a shave!

PPS It isn't complete yet there are no rates tables ... which are rather vital.

Old-Salt

Ah - the perennial problem of working purple will soon be raising it's head as well. The RN, in contrast to the other two Services, do not have dedicated "Pay", "Docs", "Leave and Travel", etc clerks - they are all trained to do everything. We also let them play with cash (when they are not absconding with it) - and most of the maintenance on the current PAS system is done by the Writers as well (soon to be retitled to Clerks, I believe). We don't need to take techs or specs with us, because the Writer does it all - in addition to usual daily tasks, running the correspondence, acting as PA to the Captain, mess fund treasurer, secretary and general dispenser of advice that they are not officially trained to dispense, but are unofficially "looked to" as subject matter experts. Our levels of authorisation are also a lot lower than the Army and RAF - we would not expect a SSGT equiv to run a Cash Account - that can be done by a LWTR/CPL with supervision - we begin to train them to work with cash at the AB/Private level to the extent that they can be left to assess and pay travel claims with a float when required. However, we would like your Unit Credit Cards, your deployable Welfare system, and your 1771s instead of our C30s. In fact, rationalisation of forms would be a good start, but what is the bet we end up with the worst forms from all three services instead of the best.....?!

The rules are not totally fixed yet, nor is the system stabilised. We have also been briefing as we go, but obviously only an overview as the actual rules and system are not yet complete (but they are not far off).

War Hero

AGC(SPS) are all trained to do everything as well - the days of being either Docs or Finance are gone (and the effect that has made on the service an Admin Office provides is another topic).

In an Admin Office, you'll find the Clerks (should) move around the office as they attempt to become the jack of all trades, so that when they get to their next posting, they've got some chance of surviving as a Docs Supervisor, even if that's based on experience five years prior.

JPA as a system isn't a bad idea, although I've yet to work in a civilian company that devolved the amount of administration to the workforce that JPA seems designed to do, understandably perhaps when you consider the PAYE, NI and VAT hoops that civilian companies have to jump through.

If I let the workforce here make their own claims, I'd be making a largish PAYE settlement at the end of the year I'm sure!

Rationalisation of forms would be a good idea, although that would mean waking the Civil Service up as a whole.

But making the claims simpler would be an even better way to go. How many different schemes do we really need to make sure a soldier manages to get home?

Old-Salt

Rationalisation of claims is not impossible - for PRP (then PAS) the RN worked out that only 5 forms were actually required for legal purposes - the rest were a duplication of computer entry! Hopefully we will go the same way with JPA (well, when I say we, I mean you, because I will be drawing pension shortly!).

When I joined up, we still had to work out tax and NI manually using the code tables, write the Pay Statements out by hand, and reconcile balances! If nothing else, it gave us a really deep insight into how pay was constructed, and therefore we had a better understanding of problems that could happen. We could also explain a Pay Statement better to someone else!

However, when working tri-Service, I managed to get approval that we would use 1771s for RN types, mainly because the units we were dealing with went away a lot, and they could photocopy one 1771 rather than transferring data from one to the other. We then paid these direct through BACS, so there was no delay, no messing, and we still had an approved paper trail. Not difficult, and crucially everyone was happy!

War Hero

Ok, I bow to the collective experts because I have read much from the authors previously that I absolutely agree with.

To me it is the period to 27 Mar that we need to concentrate on. From what my EXCELLENT girly AGC SNCO tells me ...for she is a font of knowledge and she is too busy to ski sorting out pensions or something, if you aren't DII then you stay on the manual system abd do the same forms as used currently.

All too difficult for me, I am too old for this melarky and will have to sit on the half way line with fat wheezy boys who have a sick chit from Matron.

Wake me up when it works, I am still waiting for UNICOM to fizzle INTO life yet

LE

AGG, it is the period 27 Mar to 27 Nov that is the problem. During this period we have JPA rules for many allowances but only UNICOM and manual sytems. We await with baited breath our Lords and Masters to tell us how this is to be achieved.

On a brighter note if JPA actually works then after 27 Nov all will be sweetness and light and I will be able to look forward to a happy extinction.